EYE Trouble

Cage Info:
  • 2x2x4 - screen. Acrylic plastic on left and back side to hold humidity Perfect.
  • Lighting - Arcadia 7% Not good. The 7% is not just a special bulb for animals like leopard geckos, but the fixture is designed to work correctly only with the 7% bulb. I like Arcadia and the Pro T5. You need a new fixture and a 6% uvb bulb. It also needs to be long enough to span the width of the enclosure, so 24” long. There is a difference and it matters. I can’t explain it, but I did get my info from @Venutus1 who owns https://www.lightyourreptiles.com/ about 6-8 inches from branch (another new bulb bought when this started). 65watt heat bulb, LED full spectrum for live plants. 8 am lights on, 6 pm leds off, 8 pm heat lamp off, 815 uv off.
  • Temperature - 80-90 basking, For little ones and our girls, you don’t want to go over 80 moving down around 78, sleeping areas 69-72. Lowest temp around 69 (added a ceramic heat bulb during snow storm) measured using infrared thermometer. It’s ideal to have a significant temp drop at night and veileds can handle temps as low as mid 50’s. Of course we don’t want to intentionally make them that cold, but if you can get to the 60’s, perfect.
  • Humidity - Hygrometer, in 40’s during the day, goes up to about 60 during misting. Night time fogger runs on low for a few hours. Sounds good.
  • Plants - Pothos throughout the cage, fern and draecena on bottom in bio substrate. Ok. I’m assuming you have a good drainage layer and clean up crew of isopods and springtails. Also assuming you washed the plants in gentle soap and rinsed very well and maybe repotted too?
  • Placement - Corner table, height that she basks at is above everything, about 7-8 ft high. Perfect No traffic no vents no fans
  • Location - Kentucky

  • I’m not really seeing anything jumping out to explain why her eyes should be closed. It could be parasites, it could be the fat soluble vitamins have built up in her body and she doesn’t feel well or it could be she hasn’t been getting the correct uvb levels. It could be a combination of everything. Keep trying to feed regularly before resorting to force feeding.
    To open the mouth is not easy. I will try to get my chameleon to gape at me and then I can quickly get in whatever I need. I will also very gently try to use the casque as a handle, which sometimes works. If all else fails, I gently (I can not stress enough how gentle to be) apply a light pressure to the corners of the mouth. I have only needed to do any of these on full grown chameleons though. I know for the little ones, you could try dripping water onto the tip of her nose and when she opens her mouth to drink, be quick with whatever you need to give. Also, be very careful as the airway is in the front of the mouth and you don’t want your girl to aspirate into her lungs. I aim down the back of the throat. Avoid the red. IMG_0100.jpeg
    I hope that just making these changes and improvements will be enough. Most definitely drop off a fresh fecal sample to the vet for testing. Even something as comparatively mild as pinworms can have a big effect.
 
MissSkittles said:
Breaking this into two parts - I tend to talk a lot and it’s easier this way in case I get called away.
  • Your Chameleon - Veiled, Female, about 4 months old, have had her for a month
  • Handling - we were not handling her until now since it is a must
  • Feeding - Crickets, calcium dusted every feeding without d3. Ok, you’ll need to add more variety though. Make sure to dust lightly. You don’t want your bugs to look like powdered donuts. And was doing reptivite once a week. I do know it’s already been said that this is too often. You want to use this only once every other week (works out to about twice per month) Some of the vitamins in it are fat soluble, like the A and D3 and can easily build up in the body and cause problems and eventually, toxicity. Whatever may be going on, this may be contributing. Gut loading with fruit, lettuce, and cricket quencher. This definitely needs to be improved. Your crickets are basically just carrying sugar water to your chameleon and no real nutrition. I keep my feeders well fed with a variety of fresh produce and a bit of Repashy Bug Burger. Attaching some graphics to help guide you. She was eating 10-15 a day but now she can’t see so syringe feeding. Are you still trying to offer her insect feeders? The carnivore care is ok, but shouldn’t really be used for longer than a week or so. There is Repta-Boost, which you may need to switch her to. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000634CL4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Of course, you could always mash up bugs for her into a slurry, which is possibly the grossest thing I’ve ever done, but anything for my animals. At those unfortunate times when I needed to force feed my chameleons, I would instead of just going straight to the syringe, I would first try shoving a cricket in the mouth. If that was accepted, I continued with more crickets.
  • Supplements - repti calcium without d3 every feeding. Using reptivite once weekly Already went over this
  • Watering - Misting system was every 3 hours but vamped up to every hour for 30 seconds now. Dripper 24/7 and used to always see her drinking but now SHE CANT SEE so getting her water from humidity box and soak. I don’t like this at all. All of this imo is risking giving her a respiratory infection, which is the last thing she needs. You want to continue misting for two minutes, 2-3 times a day - before lights on and off and mid day if needed. Soaking her is only stressing her out. Chameleons do not absorb water thru their vent. I don’t know why vets still believe this. I don’t know what a humidity box is, but I don’t like it during the day. Heat plus high humidity is a recipe for respiratory infection. However, at night if you can achieve a significant drop in temp to at least 68-70, you can use a fogger and boost humidity all the way. This simulates natural hydration wild chameleons get thru fog.
  • Fecal Description - Was pooping normal when she was able to eat, brown poop white urates. Never tested for parasites A fecal check is most definitely something that needs to be done to rule that out as a cause for her illness.
  • I do need to say that ever since keeping chameleons, I’ve learned that veterinarians are human and their education just isn’t able to cover the finer points of husbandry for every single animal. Some vets have lots of experience and have on their own learned more about chameleons. These are few and far between though. Most will try, but apply the standard lizard care to them, which doesn’t work well. I was told by a vet that I needed to enclose my sick chameleon in a bin of warm water and then place it on a heating pad. This is just so very wrong to do and horrible advice for any circumstance. Aside from that horror, the vet is actually pretty good.
    More to come. (I warned you I talk a lot). View attachment 350156View attachment 350157
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for all this info, i am going to try to feed her crickets tomorrow, she was only eating crickets so i had to get rid of the dubias previously.

No more soak and humidity box, I have fogger on low for through the night, cage is now at 71 where she is at, 68 where she normally sleeps when she can see. I do have the bug burger but didn’t make it correctly the first time I will start to use that again starting in the morning.

She is still strong and active and it started with her right eye she was rubbing it on branches and scraping at it with her foot. Left eye just followed days later but no irritation signs it just slowly started to close.

Is there a way to get her to open her mouth without prying it open for the crickets ? She has never been aggressive and the type to gape her mouth open when stressed since we got her
 
Kodyf said:
This is the hard part because she is so young. You don’t want to force the syringe so this can be quite difficult. If you catch her gaping or drinking you can always just try to put a cricket into the mouth or the syringe with bug juice, maybe catch her drinking.
Click to expand...
Another problem here is she doesn’t know where the dripper is now since she can’t see and doesn’t really know how to get to the leaves. So much going on
 
Kodyf said:
Older chameleons can endure force feeding, but as discussed in prior threads forcefeeding of the chameleon at this age is not worth the risk of injury.
So catching her at just the right time gaping or drinking is one of the few options here.
I’m thinking once she gets one taste of that bug juice she’ll be going for more.
Click to expand...
Will try in the morning
 
MissSkittles said:
Cage Info:
  • 2x2x4 - screen. Acrylic plastic on left and back side to hold humidity Perfect.
  • Lighting - Arcadia 7% Not good. The 7% is not just a special bulb for animals like leopard geckos, but the fixture is designed to work correctly only with the 7% bulb. I like Arcadia and the Pro T5. You need a new fixture and a 6% uvb bulb. It also needs to be long enough to span the width of the enclosure, so 24” long. There is a difference and it matters. I can’t explain it, but I did get my info from @Venutus1 who owns https://www.lightyourreptiles.com/ about 6-8 inches from branch (another new bulb bought when this started). 65watt heat bulb, LED full spectrum for live plants. 8 am lights on, 6 pm leds off, 8 pm heat lamp off, 815 uv off.
  • Temperature - 80-90 basking, For little ones and our girls, you don’t want to go over 80 moving down around 78, sleeping areas 69-72. Lowest temp around 69 (added a ceramic heat bulb during snow storm) measured using infrared thermometer. It’s ideal to have a significant temp drop at night and veileds can handle temps as low as mid 50’s. Of course we don’t want to intentionally make them that cold, but if you can get to the 60’s, perfect.
  • Humidity - Hygrometer, in 40’s during the day, goes up to about 60 during misting. Night time fogger runs on low for a few hours. Sounds good.
  • Plants - Pothos throughout the cage, fern and draecena on bottom in bio substrate. Ok. I’m assuming you have a good drainage layer and clean up crew of isopods and springtails. Also assuming you washed the plants in gentle soap and rinsed very well and maybe repotted too?
  • Placement - Corner table, height that she basks at is above everything, about 7-8 ft high. Perfect No traffic no vents no fans
  • Location - Kentucky

  • I’m not really seeing anything jumping out to explain why her eyes should be closed. It could be parasites, it could be the fat soluble vitamins have built up in her body and she doesn’t feel well or it could be she hasn’t been getting the correct uvb levels. It could be a combination of everything. Keep trying to feed regularly before resorting to force feeding.
    To open the mouth is not easy. I will try to get my chameleon to gape at me and then I can quickly get in whatever I need. I will also very gently try to use the casque as a handle, which sometimes works. If all else fails, I gently (I can not stress enough how gentle to be) apply a light pressure to the corners of the mouth. I have only needed to do any of these on full grown chameleons though. I know for the little ones, you could try dripping water onto the tip of her nose and when she opens her mouth to drink, be quick with whatever you need to give. Also, be very careful as the airway is in the front of the mouth and you don’t want your girl to aspirate into her lungs. I aim down the back of the throat. Avoid the red. View attachment 350159
    I hope that just making these changes and improvements will be enough. Most definitely drop off a fresh fecal sample to the vet for testing. Even something as comparatively mild as pinworms can have a big effect.
Click to expand...
Thanks again I will get new uv tomorrow
 
Oh…she is just a tiny little thing. I’d be too fearful of hurting her to force her mouth open. Try dripping water on her nose. @kinyonga is the one who’s always taught that along with suggesting the bug juice. She has so much more experience than I and maybe has some better ideas.
 
MissSkittles said:
Oh…she is just a tiny little thing. I’d be too fearful of hurting her to force her mouth open. Try dripping water on her nose. @kinyonga is the one who’s always taught that along with suggesting the bug juice. She has so much more experience than I and maybe has some better ideas.
Click to expand...
Ok, yea she was doing so well until the past week , hopefully I can help her recover
 
I just want to say that I know this can all be overwhelming. My guy was sick when I first got him. Missskittles was one of the lovely people here who helped me get him back in good shape. Take it one step at a time, don’t be afraid to ask questions. No one here is going to judge you. If something isn’t clear, just ask.

Of course keep us updated. We tend to worry about others babies just as much as our own. We also love to see pictures ☺️ and please stick around. It’s been almost a year since I first came here and I’m learning more and more every day!
 
@CamoTheCham12 Please read through every detail @MissSkittles gave you in the two part review she did for you. Everything she pin pointed is what I would have addressed as well. I would not continue with the humidity box/soak. Chameleons do not respond to this method and the potential for a respiratory infection is very high with this. Also it is extremely stressful for them. You really want to limit stress when they are going into a shut down like she is.

The major issue I see is that she has been under incorrect UVB since you have had her. Their bodies start becoming compromised when they do not have the correct UVB. This leads to eyes closing during the day and lack of appetite. The reptivite with D3 would be given only 2 times a month however the fact that you have been giving it weekly with the incorrect UVB would not be high risk for her overdosing in the last month. So I would say this is not part of what is happening to her.

Get the correct UVB asap and see if she can bounce back instead of going into a further decline.

You do have to be very careful with carnivore care this does have fat soluble vitamins that will build up in her system. THis is why we often do bug juice instead for situations that require force feeding.
 
MissSkittles said:
Cage Info:
  • 2x2x4 - screen. Acrylic plastic on left and back side to hold humidity Perfect.
  • Lighting - Arcadia 7% Not good. The 7% is not just a special bulb for animals like leopard geckos, but the fixture is designed to work correctly only with the 7% bulb. I like Arcadia and the Pro T5. You need a new fixture and a 6% uvb bulb. It also needs to be long enough to span the width of the enclosure, so 24” long. There is a difference and it matters. I can’t explain it, but I did get my info from @Venutus1 who owns https://www.lightyourreptiles.com/ about 6-8 inches from branch (another new bulb bought when this started). 65watt heat bulb, LED full spectrum for live plants. 8 am lights on, 6 pm leds off, 8 pm heat lamp off, 815 uv off.
  • Temperature - 80-90 basking, For little ones and our girls, you don’t want to go over 80 moving down around 78, sleeping areas 69-72. Lowest temp around 69 (added a ceramic heat bulb during snow storm) measured using infrared thermometer. It’s ideal to have a significant temp drop at night and veileds can handle temps as low as mid 50’s. Of course we don’t want to intentionally make them that cold, but if you can get to the 60’s, perfect.
  • Humidity - Hygrometer, in 40’s during the day, goes up to about 60 during misting. Night time fogger runs on low for a few hours. Sounds good.
  • Plants - Pothos throughout the cage, fern and draecena on bottom in bio substrate. Ok. I’m assuming you have a good drainage layer and clean up crew of isopods and springtails. Also assuming you washed the plants in gentle soap and rinsed very well and maybe repotted too?
  • Placement - Corner table, height that she basks at is above everything, about 7-8 ft high. Perfect No traffic no vents no fans
  • Location - Kentucky

  • I’m not really seeing anything jumping out to explain why her eyes should be closed. It could be parasites, it could be the fat soluble vitamins have built up in her body and she doesn’t feel well or it could be she hasn’t been getting the correct uvb levels. It could be a combination of everything. Keep trying to feed regularly before resorting to force feeding.
    To open the mouth is not easy. I will try to get my chameleon to gape at me and then I can quickly get in whatever I need. I will also very gently try to use the casque as a handle, which sometimes works. If all else fails, I gently (I can not stress enough how gentle to be) apply a light pressure to the corners of the mouth. I have only needed to do any of these on full grown chameleons though. I know for the little ones, you could try dripping water onto the tip of her nose and when she opens her mouth to drink, be quick with whatever you need to give. Also, be very careful as the airway is in the front of the mouth and you don’t want your girl to aspirate into her lungs. I aim down the back of the throat. Avoid the red. View attachment 350159
    I hope that just making these changes and improvements will be enough. Most definitely drop off a fresh fecal sample to the vet for testing. Even something as comparatively mild as pinworms can have a big effect.
Click to expand...
Just got t5 pro with 6%. 24 inch. Going to try crushing bugs and feeding her when back home
 
Gloriawood said:
I just want to say that I know this can all be overwhelming. My guy was sick when I first got him. Missskittles was one of the lovely people here who helped me get him back in good shape. Take it one step at a time, don’t be afraid to ask questions. No one here is going to judge you. If something isn’t clear, just ask.

Of course keep us updated. We tend to worry about others babies just as much as our own. We also love to see pictures ☺️ and please stick around. It’s been almost a year since I first came here and I’m learning more and more every day!
Click to expand...
Thank you and yea very stressful. We are want her better. Could have easily bough 3 more with the money spent on her the past week but we want THIS one!!
 
Beman said:
@CamoTheCham12 Please read through every detail @MissSkittles gave you in the two part review she did for you. Everything she pin pointed is what I would have addressed as well. I would not continue with the humidity box/soak. Chameleons do not respond to this method and the potential for a respiratory infection is very high with this. Also it is extremely stressful for them. You really want to limit stress when they are going into a shut down like she is.

The major issue I see is that she has been under incorrect UVB since you have had her. Their bodies start becoming compromised when they do not have the correct UVB. This leads to eyes closing during the day and lack of appetite. The reptivite with D3 would be given only 2 times a month however the fact that you have been giving it weekly with the incorrect UVB would not be high risk for her overdosing in the last month. So I would say this is not part of what is happening to her.

Get the correct UVB asap and see if she can bounce back instead of going into a further decline.

You do have to be very careful with carnivore care this does have fat soluble vitamins that will build up in her system. THis is why we often do bug juice instead for situations that require force feeding.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the response! I just got the t5 pro and the 6% bulb. Going to try making the bug juice in a minute. I appreciate all the quick responses as you all know how fast they can decline
 
CamoTheCham12 said:
Thank you for the response! I just got the t5 pro and the 6% bulb. Going to try making the bug juice in a minute. I appreciate all the quick responses as you all know how fast they can decline
Click to expand...
Distance using this fixture and 6% would be fixture sitting on top of the cage and then measure 8-9 inches down. You want branches at that distance below the UVB. :)
 
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